In today's highly competitive business world, advertising to customers, both potential and previous, is a necessity. A business bears the expenses of advertising to inform, persuade or remind target buyers of the business' goods, services or goodwill, with the ultimate goal being that an advertisement will result in the sale of the goods or services. Additionally, many businesses desire to thank customers for recent purchases and offer additional related goods or services to the customer, thereby promoting customer loyalty.
One method for such advertising is by direct mail. There are many different ways a business, both large and small, can conduct an advertising campaign using direct mailings. Suppose, for example, a large company has multiple satellite offices or franchises located in different geographic areas, but requires each office to utilize the same style and look for its advertising to retain a single corporate identity. Typically, the company's marketing department will design a standard mailing and make the design files available to the sales representatives in each of the satellite offices. The sales representative will select a design, customize the file by adding contact information, and print the desired number of copies. Alternatively, the sales representative may also use a commercial printing service to print the mailing. Once the mailing has been printed, the sales representative must address the mailing and apply the proper postage to produce a finished mail piece. The finished mail piece can then be sent to the intended recipient.
There are problems, however, with the generation and sending of conventional direct mailings as described above. For example, there is the risk that a sales representative will make unauthorized changes to the design of the mail piece before printing, thereby removing any uniformity in design between the different satellite offices. Additionally, the printing of the mailing by the sales representative may be time consuming, and the quality of the finished mail piece is limited by the performance of the equipment upon which the mail piece is printed. Additionally, a small number of mailings each year may not justify the expense of maintaining the mailing, shipping and printing equipment in house. While the use of a commercial printing service can eliminate the need to maintain such equipment and ensure a high quality product, the use of such a service may be cost prohibitive, especially for a mailing that does not contain a large number of pieces. Furthermore, the sales representative may not be able to take advantage of postal discounts for mailing rates if the mailing is not pre-sorted or does not contain a sufficient number of pieces.
Thus, there exists a need for an economical and efficient method and system for mail piece production that reliably controls the format and design of the mail pieces.